North Carolina Day of Fun!

Thursday was our last day to be with our friends Nate and Jenna, and they helped us have a great day in North Carolina! :) Nate actually had to work, but Jenna took us around and showed us some fun sights!

Okay, first of all, we have to talk about the donuts. Leslie, I'm assuming you've had these, since I know you guys love a good donut shop. So therefore I have probably read about them on your blog and just hadn't remembered them specifically. But you and Erica (and Jenni!) are SO LUCKY to live near Duck Donuts!!! Have any of the rest of you ever had these?

Revolutionary. Life-changing.

I actually don't like cake donuts. I don't like them because they are always hard and crumbly and not that exciting. These redeemed all cake donuts for all time for me. Warm donuts, iced with fresh frosting right in front of you (also warm frosting, if you're keeping count of the goodness) and really good coffee, too. (It's actually hard to find good coffee at a donut shop.) Ryan and I decided if we were independently wealthy, we should open a Duck Donuts in our area.

I could go on and on, but if you heard the podcast, you know I already DID go on and on, so I'll move on for now. (BUT SERIOUSLY!!!!!)

Jenna then took us on to the Museum of Natural Sciences, which is a cool museum that is also FREE! Yay! We love free! (Almost as much as we love Duck Donuts! Oh wait. Sorry. I derailed.)

There were a ton of field trip folks there that day, but we still had a great time. Lots to see, including a butterfly garden!

(The butterfly area was crowded with aforementioned field trips, and the keepers of the room were a bit in my space, so I didn't get the most amazing pictures ever. It was still fun!)

Oh, by the way. Ryan has a new adoring fan now.

I mean, can you blame her?

Before we went back to Nate and Jenna's, she took us to see this yard of Christmas in Raleigh. Here's the story. Apparently there's a show on ABC I'd never heard of called The Great Light Fight. Places with lots of Christmas lights compete for a $50,000 prize. So Jenna was telling us about this yard in Raleigh that was on that show.

Now.

Keep in mind we saw it during the day, so obviously some of the full effect is lost:

It may not have been night, but that's still a LOT of Christmas!

Here's the crazy part. I learned via the magic of Facebook that this show I'd never heard of was actually filming IN KOKOMO while we were gone. They came to our We Care park (a neighborhood that puts up tons of lights to raise money for charity) to film.

And the show is hosted by Carter Oosterhouse, who was one of my favorite TV people back in my single days. Carter was in Kokomo and I was gone! One of the guys from our church posted to Facebook that he had no idea who this guy was, but when he got out of the limo, all the women screamed. I told Ryan that made perfect sense to me. Ryan rolled his eyes. And then later he asked me something about Carlson Palmer. I said, "Who is Carlson Palmer?" He said, "You know. That guy from TV you think is so dreamy?"

CARTER OOSTERHOUSE!!!!!

But dreamy though he may be, he's still in no competition with my beloved Ryan or our new friend Duck Donuts. Just sayin'.

;)

After we got back home, we just hung out with Nate and Jenna the rest of the day. It was really nice to have a low key day because oh my goodness - Friday was going to be SO BUSY!!!!!